Honeyduke's Finest
by Persephone33
Summary: Ginny leaves Draco home alone with their son.  Madness ensues.All things Harry Potter belong to J.K. Rowling and various and sundry movie houses and publishing companies.  Don't sue me, pretty please.


She hadn't ever left him completely alone with their child. Ever since Ethan was born there had been at the very least a house elf around to help him whenever the need arose. Such was not the case today; Ginny had sent all the elves away. She said that it was time for Draco to sink or swim, as it were. Her bushy-haired sister in law had wanted to go Christmas shopping, and Ginny had decided that it would be more fun to go without an almost two year old toddler. When given the choice of tagging along and carrying bags or staying home with the baby, he had politely declined the invitation; he assured her that he was up to the task of looking after Ethan. Ginny merely smirked, quirked an eyebrow and nodded. Draco had assured her that he could handle it, and waved her out the door nonchalantly.

_It turned out that there was a first time for everything_, he thought. He, the inimitable Draco Malfoy, was wrong. He discovered that he was woefully unequipped to look after an energetic toddler who never stopped moving. Draco first caught his son in the kitchen, where it appeared as if he had dumped an entire case of cauldron cakes out of the larder, unwrapped all of them and ground them systematically into the pristine marble floor. Before he was completely done cleaning up that mess, he heard Ethan in Ginny's sitting room where the boy had just broken a statue of a garden gnome that Ginny was unaccountably fond of. He was about to praise his son for getting rid of the horrid thing when he realized the boy was about to step through the shards. He stepped in , scooped him up and set him in the corridor before turning back and rolling his eyes while muttering, "_Reparo"_; Ginny would be upset if that thing were gone. The child was constantly on the move, no wonder Ginny was tired at the end of the day. He never stopped moving, that is, until Draco discovered the Malfoy heir a few minutes later in _his_ study, covered from head to toe in a sticky brown substance and sitting unsteadily next to an early Christmas gift from Blaise, a box of Firewhisky-filled sweets from Honeydukes. The child had no less than a dozen wrappers scattered all about him, hiccoughing and giggling. Draco sighed heavily, moved the boy, and began picking up the wrappers when he realized that the child was in the process of climbing up on the sofa, about to swan dive off of it, when Draco caught him.

Ginny was going to kill him. And his darling wife wouldn't do it in a single AK, no, she'd involve some sort of torture, he was sure of it. He had allowed their only son to get drunk. _Damn Blaise_.

Draco was as close to panic as he had ever been. His first thought was to give the tyke a Sobering Potion, but he wasn't sure if that would be safe for a child under two. _Oh, Great Merlin in the Morning_. He knew what he had to do. It wasn't going to be pretty. He had to go see Ginny's brothers, the masters of the antidote, Fred and George Weasley.

The door chimes tinkled merrily as Draco walked into the shop with his giggling, hiccoughing slightly swaying infant in his arms and prayed to whoever was listening that his brothers in law would know how to fix this. He'd bribe them; offer them whatever they wanted in return for their secrecy. Ginny must never know about this. He walked over to the register and put the drunken baby on the counter.

"Oi--"

"Malfoy--"

"Our favorite brother in law!"

"What have you-"

"Been doing, mate?"

"You've chocolate in your hair."

Draco had never quite gotten used to Fred and George's ping-pong game style of conversing. It made him slightly nauseous. He shook his head to clear it.

"Yeah," he began, running a hand through his sticky hair, "afternoon, gents. I, ah, have a problem and I was wondering if you might see your way clear to helping your nephew out of a scrape."

Fred and George peered at the tiny blond child.

"Ethan!"

"Little tyke!"

"He's covered in chocolate, Malfoy--"

"And he smells like--"

"Mundungus on a bad day."

Fred looked at his twin. "I do believe our illustrious brother in law-"

"Let our only blond-haired nephew-"

"Get pissed."

George looked at Draco seriously. "You do know that wizards don't normally start drinking until their seventeenth birthday?"

Fred nodded and replied, "Guess there's an exception for the Malfoy heir."

Draco scowled at the two redheads. "Listen. I need your help. Do you have a potion that would, erm, lessen the effects? He got into some of Honeyduke's best."

"Oh, right."

"We see."

They turned their attention to the blond toddler.

"Hey, mate," they intoned.

Ethan hiccoughed.

"Another one, then?" George chucked the boy under the chin. Ethan giggled.

Draco frowned. "I did not give my son liquor."

"Sure, Malfoy-"

"Whatever you say, mate."

"Does Gin know that her only child-"

"Has a drinking problem?"

Draco took the boy back into his arms. "He doesn't have a drinking problem!" Draco growled.

"Well, it is before noon, Malfoy."

"Oi, Fred, it is noon somewhere, eh?"

"Too right."

George focused his attention on the child. "One for the road, then, Ethan?"

Draco gritted his teeth. "You can't help then?"

"No, not as such," George replied. "Sobering Potions are too strong for this little tyke."

"And putting coffee into his baby bottle might just be compounding the problem. 

"It'd just make him a more alert drunk--"

"Our advice is to feed him--"

"And let him sleep it off."

Fred smiled widely. "He'll probably need a hair of the dog in the morning, though."

Draco was having a hard time controlling his temper. "You two will, of course, not tell Ginny about this, right?"

Fred and George shrugged. George put a hand on Draco's shoulder. "Sorry mate. Blood is thicker than-"

"Chocolate." Fred took a handkerchief and swiped at the child's cheek.

"However, Malfoy, if you would volunteer yourself to be a test subject for a bit-"

"We might see our way clear to keep from mentioning this incident to our sweet sister."

_So much for the brotherhood of man_, Draco thought. "Fine," Draco agreed. "Just don't tell Ginny."

"Done, mate. See you next Thursday."

Draco exited the shop before his temper got the best of him. He stalked down the street to the Leaky Cauldron, looking surreptitiously over his shoulder for Ginny and her shopping party. Ethan wriggled around in his arms, tired of being held. He was beginning to get cranky at this point, rubbing his fists into his eyes.

"Need another stiff one, do you, kid? Da, too." He ordered a lunch for Ethan and a Butterbeer for himself and they ate in peace, for the most part, the child only falling over a few times. Just about the time they finished, Ethan's eyes were drooping and he was very fussy. Draco thought he'd better take the twin blunders' advice and get Ethan back to the manor for a nap.

They flooed back to Malfoy Manor, and just about the time Draco stepped out of the grate, holding his son, Ethan chose that moment to let his lunch and the dozen or so liquor-filled sweets make a reappearance. All over his father. Ethan began crying in earnest. Draco pressed his lips in a line and closed his eyes.

_He's my son. I can't just throw him away_.

_It's winter. I can't hose him off in the back garden_.

_No elves. No one to help me_.

_I am, however, a wizard. __**Scourgify**_.

He pointed his wand at himself, then at his son, but, as it was with that particular spell, the mess was gone, but the stench remained. He decided that it was bath time. He took both of their clothes threw them in the rubbish bin, knowing that there was absolutely no way he would ever wear those particular robes again. He didn't care how good the elves' magic was, they'd been tainted. Irreparably.

He ran a bath for them both, and by the time he'd cleaned them of all of the chocolate, soot and other various things he'd rather not think about, Ethan was nodding off. Draco managed to get them both into pyjamas and Ethan into his bed, and before he could even put the lights out, the tot was asleep.

Draco watched his son's still form. He looks almost angelic like that, he thought.

But Draco knew better.

He went down to his study, remembering that he needed to clean up the mess from the sweets before Ginny came home. When he walked into the room, he saw that it was too late.

Ginny was standing in the pile of sweets wrappers, with a murderous look on her face. "I've been to see Fred and George. Explain."

Draco began backpedaling immediately. "Ginny no, love. Everything's fine. I repaired everything and got Ethan all taken care of. He's sleeping, now. Peacefully."

Ginny looked at her husband through narrowed eyes. "They told me everything, you know." She took three steps toward him. "I smell Butterbeer. And look at these wrappers! You've been drinking when flooing with our son, too?"

"NO! I drank Butterbeer! That's not strong! Ethan ate the candy--"

Ginny stilled immediately. "Ethan ate all this candy?"

Draco swallowed. "Y-yes."

"You let him?"

"No, I was repairing your gnome and cleaning the mess in the kitchen. He moves really quickly, you know," he said quietly.

"My Gnome?" she asked hysterically. "Wait. Priorities." She glared at her husband. "Ethan was left unattended and he ate all this candy? This," she looked at the box top, "Firewhisky-filled candy?" Ginny shook her head. "Fred and George said to expect you at 4:00 next Thursday."

"I'm not doing anything for those turncoats. There's no honor amongst brothers-in-law, anymore."

"Was there ever?" she asked. "They didn't tell me, Draco. You just did. Sang like a bird, too. I told them you would. When you see them, tell them that they owe me fifty galleons. I'm going up to check on Ethan. Goodnight Draco." Ginny grinned as she left her husband exhausted in his study, thinking that it was good to see that Draco Malfoy could be brought to his knees by a rambunctious toddler.


End file.
